I recently found out about a homebrewing competition too local to pass up for this first-time competitor. The problem was, I found out about it so late, I didn't have time to make anything fresh. I wanted to enter a special graf I've been playing with, and I did have a batch ready to bottle up, but I had not had the chance to get it bottled in a timely manner, so it had sat, without purged headspace in a carboy, for about a month longer than it should have. I went ahead and bottled it up with priming sugar; it tasted and looked great, so I figured, OK, it won't be perfect, probably don't have a shot of winning, but for a first time experience, what the hell, nothing to lose.
So after a week and a half at warm room temperature, the bottles are carbing up nicely, still looking and tasting great, except, damn, there is a tiny pellicle that's formed in bottle on every single one. OK, given my understanding that this is a dead giveaway that your beer had detrimental oxygen exposure, whether my palate can taste it or not, and judges understandably judge harshly in this department, yeah, I'm probably an also-ran in this competition going in, but I would still like to enter for the hell of it. So question, can anything be done to minimize the appearance or further development of pellicle in bottle? My inclination was, OK, invert the bottles and refrigerate, let them settle out again for the next few days before dropping them off. I tested that out on a couple, and pretty much instantly I get some flecks floating right back up. I think I will at least refrigerate the rest, even though they could stand a couple more days at room temp for further carbonation. Can't imagine there's anything else to be done, but thought I'd put it out there and ask just in case.
So after a week and a half at warm room temperature, the bottles are carbing up nicely, still looking and tasting great, except, damn, there is a tiny pellicle that's formed in bottle on every single one. OK, given my understanding that this is a dead giveaway that your beer had detrimental oxygen exposure, whether my palate can taste it or not, and judges understandably judge harshly in this department, yeah, I'm probably an also-ran in this competition going in, but I would still like to enter for the hell of it. So question, can anything be done to minimize the appearance or further development of pellicle in bottle? My inclination was, OK, invert the bottles and refrigerate, let them settle out again for the next few days before dropping them off. I tested that out on a couple, and pretty much instantly I get some flecks floating right back up. I think I will at least refrigerate the rest, even though they could stand a couple more days at room temp for further carbonation. Can't imagine there's anything else to be done, but thought I'd put it out there and ask just in case.
